Apollo : an illustrated manual of the history of art throughout the ages / by S. Reinach ... from the French, by Florence Simmonds.

  • Salomon Reinach
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Apollo : an illustrated manual of the history of art throughout the ages / by S. Reinach ... from the French, by Florence Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/376 (page 4)
    Our knowledge of the second period is more abundant. The reindeer, non-existent in the earlier phase, became as numerous as horses or kine, furnishing man not only with succulent meat, but with horn, bone, and tendons, which lent themselves to the first essays of industry and art. Daggers, harpoons, stilettoes, and various implements made of reindeer horn have been unearthed; and also carved reindeer-horns and bones, covered with reliefs and drawings. The man who lived on reindeer’s flesh had remarked the chro- matic qualities of certain earths, more particularly of ochre. He was fond of vivid colours, and it is probable that like the savages of our own times he painted his body. But he did much more than this. On the walls and roofs of the caves where he sought shelter from the cold (which at that period obtained for nine months of the year), he amused himself by engraving and painting animals with extraordinary dexterity. During the last few years, prehistoric paint- ings of the highest interest have been discovered m many of the caves of Perigord and the Pyrenees. In those caves of France, where it has been possible to observe the superposition of the various strata of civilisa- tion, it has been found that figures m the round, carved in stone, or in the bones of mammoth and reindeer, lay buried more deeply, and are consequently earlier, than those carved in relief or drawn. Drawings made with a style, the products of this art m its greatest perfection, are contemporary with paintings, which show the same characteristics, and deserve no less admiration. Of these characteristics, the most striking is realism. Fancy seems to be absolutely excluded; whether represented alone or m groups, the animals are depicted with a correctness to which we find no parallel in the art of the modern savage. The next characteristic IS sobriety. There are no useless details; certain animal forms of this period, either engraved or painted, will bear comparison with the fine animal-studies of modern artists. Finally—and this is perhaps the most extraordinary trait of all—the artist of the reindeer 4 FIG. 2.—MAMMOTH ENCJKAVKI) ON WAI.L. (Cave of Coni])are]les, Dordogne.)